109229-state-of-wildstar-and-dev-communication
Content ---- ---- Please show me this detailed post regarding pvp, I do not see it. (Its a rhetorical question, there isn't one.) Gear gap and healing un-nerf were the last "announced" changes, and we are yet to see either on live or the PTR. | |} ---- ---- /thread Edit: Hahahahahahahah I can't stop laughing at how silly the OP's long ass rant sounds now. | |} ---- ---- Spot on post and very much agree with these points. Answer quoted below.. | |} ---- ---- 18 Aug 2014 It took 1 patch to break healing and 3 months of 1800 gear vs 1200 gear. Its too long, and it wont address the other issues that its still totally possible for legit 1800 geared players to meet 1200 geared players in the current matchmaking system. It also doesn't cover any of the other issues mentioned, so "most" is a stretch. | |} ---- ---- ... The linked post doesn't even scratch the surface of the issues. TTK vs healing is a joke, even if they adjust back up the Burst cooldowns of players are much lower than the burst healing cooldowns of healers. Healing just isn't fit for purpose in this game (in pvp). Burst cooldowns are as low as 6-10 seconds (charge shot, rampage, TS, and so on) but healing cooldowns are hugely less effective and on longer cooldowns. Its a mess right now. Without the gear gap and rating fixes we can't even begin to eliminate relative skill and gear as a factor before discussing it so... Yeah. Not really /thread is it? | |} ---- Thank you, that's what I was looking for. :) I'll see if I can try to find posts regarding your issues mentioned. I agree that some times it is difficult to FIND everything in one spot, and keep it at the top and relevant. I do personally think our developers work really hard at communicating as much as they can though, and that's why I am trying to bring forward their posts. These are the issues I can see in your main post (feel free to let me know if I have missed something). Matchmaking Class balance more on class balance (nexus report, this involves PvP class changes) Itemization (this was on a recent nexus report) Population Cool-downs more on cool downs Gear gap Healing in PvP Upcoming bug fixes 7 Part series on changes upcoming to the rune system | |} ---- ---- ---- If it were me it'd go something along the lines of; "ok healing is screwed, what do we do?" "how long will it take to fix" "well we don't want to bugger it up so we'll have to iterate and test for X days, then update you" "thats too long to leave a broken system live, should we revert the changes on live?" "that was just as broken, so it wouldn't solve anything" "ok, what is the band-aid fix or workaround for the short term so we can move to a long term solution" "well we could do XXX or improve YYY. Maybe decrease damage across the board" Thats how things work. Can you fix it now? No. Ok. What is the workaround? Currently we have neither a fix nor a workaround, just a post from two weeks ago saying its broken and we'll look into fixing it. If its going to take ages to fix, you need to provide a work around. IT 101. None of which explains why there are some issues with no response at all, and why devs get on live streams and respond with "i don't quite get the issue" responses when there are pages of feedback on the hot issues. | |} ---- ---- I was only responding to the 'lack of communication' portion of this post, I'm not commenting on anything else but to say that IMO the devs do communicate. | |} ---- Thanks for your efforts, but I think we can agree these barely scratch the surface, and most of the PVP issues are gated on the fact that the gear gap and matchmaking issues are probably hiding or creating other issues, and therefore need to be live sooner rather than "two weeks later still wondering whats going on." So, communication? Some. Ineffective though, I think most would say. Here is another: Matchmaking currently gives each RBG team a set win/loss amount. But my RBG score is lower relative to the team we beat or lose to, so shouldn't I win more and lose less? Averaging our whole team's rating over time? That would make sense, but its not how it currently works. Atm I am stuck 250 rating behind our highest rating player and I'll never catch him, and we'll have to over-farm rating by 250 to get me the same rewards. | |} ---- I'm sorry that the answers were not ones you were looking for, but like I commented before, I was saying they are communicating. I didn't say the issues were fixed, whether they are on live, PTR, whether there are issues or no issues - I'm saying the devs do talk. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- This is why we love you, Chillia. :) | |} ---- A total impartial point of view | |} ---- ---- ---- so the general empty state of servers is just an issue for my "personal perspective", and not at all an indicator that something is wrong out there? :rolleyes: Sorry friend but, no. Defending the game because you're a fanboy and want it succeed is whiteknighting. Saying people who have valid concerns are just moaning about their personal perspective while conveniently ignoring the dropping population is whiteknighting. There are issues, and we need a roadmap to resolve them. We needed it last month. That is the reality, and I am openly discussing it. We need to put some confidence back into the devs, the game and convince people the content is worth paying the subs for. This month we're now hoping that announcing changes will bring players back. | |} ---- ---- So what happened with the PvP healing? I'm pretty sure that created a rather large issue. To the point I gave up on my 50 healer and rolled a new toon.(Leveling a 3rd toon to 50 makes me want to give up on this game) I'm confused as to how the dev's thought making a healer virtually useless in a BG a step forward? People did test this right? The dev's do type words. I wouldn't really call it communicating. | |} ---- They're doing the best they can. I know I wouldn't be able to answer every question on my design work if thousands of people were all sending me emails, twitter, FB, and forum questions about their pet peeves and still actually do my design work. It seems a little unfair to wonder why people who are trying to do a job don't drop everything to answer every particular question they get, especially if they are still examining issues. If it isn't obvious, while we can say whatever we want as far as solutions go, they need to actually implement real solutions with real code that don't have any unintended side effects, or that becomes their next "problem" everyone will complain about. And if they do keep us up to date, we get the whinging volume increased (just look at when they announced the attunement change, these forums became nothing but a rage-fest for people who hadn't had anything to do with the attunement argument before). They can't win, so I don't blame them for treating us like children who can only handle so much information. I certainly don't blame them for not coming to every single forum thread to answer everyone's individual questions personally. | |} ---- Your not the only one rolling alts while they wait.. ive made several now...and so have many others. If your feeling the burnout go take some time out and come back later when things feel freshened up a bit. | |} ---- How the hell do you know? Are you involved in the Community Team to Dev (and visa versa) system? That kind of comment is the very core of whiteknighting. "I have no information, but I defend these guys!!" If you want to make things better, tell them about your experience like I am, don't just repeat what you hear them say. Its a good argument until you realise that half the changes that have been made have been lackluster or have broken something. Where was the real testing and real code then? I stand by the arguments I've been making since drop1. They are pushing out content too fast and not polishing and fixing the old content fast enough. I'd quite happily still be playing dungeons and doing RBGs if those systems were worth my time and subs. As it stands, they currently are not. For reasons, see above. tl;dr for dungeons its no loot/gear progression and RBGs its broken geargap/matchmaking/rating system It depends what you mean by "winning". If you mean, design a successful game with player and subscription growth, then I say they can win.. they just need to listen to the feedback from those of us offering it and act on it more quickly. If you mean, "make it so nobody ever complains" then you're right. There will always be something. At the moment there are several big somethings. | |} ---- That's awesome that you're okay with being treated like a child. But when I pay money, I'd rather they not put baby in the corner.... ya dig? I am no doubt not the only one this has affected. I already have alts man. I don't want anymore. I didn't find the grind of leveling in this game better or worse than others. It is what it is, I don't wanna do it again, and I pay a sub. So while I wait on them am I pro-rated? moderator edit: content Edited August 18, 2014 by Chillia | |} ---- ---- I know they're doing as much as they can because I'm aware of their hourly schedules. Are you assuming that Carbine Studios is in the habit of working 20 hour work weeks or spending more of their time at Starbucks than on a computer? Yes, they're doing the best they possibly can, the company itself doesn't number more than 250 to the man. As for apparently having not fixed anything, I'm in the habit of running multiple characters. More than you, I'm very aware of how much was fixed. I remember reporting quite a few bugs while leveling, almost all of which are gone now. Recall also that a lot of the "PVP breaking bugs" now were things the community was screaming to have implemented a month prior. For the first two months, PVP was broken because healers could AOE heal through anything, damage was nerfed, engineers were useless, espers were worthless, warriors did too much damage, etc. etc. Now, PVP is broken because healing is worthless, engineers are OP, espers are OP, damage is too high, warriors are nerfed, etc. etc. People asked for PVP to be changed into this and so it came to pass. I'm not about to blame Carbine when everyone, for two months, complained that it was nothing but a zergfest that required no skill. Other items, like fixing the gear system, came up later (RNG came up about early July and picked up in late July, well after people spent their time saying that leveling was a brick wall to keep people from raiding and that attunement was doing nothing but adding tedious grinding to keep people from raiding). The gearing system is, in fact, massively complicated because the stats are idiosyncratic, so installing a new system is going to take a little more than a week and a prayer. Especially if you're really worried about any sort of imperfection in the implemented system, which you've said you are. You can't just come up with a quick fix and implement it without breaking everything else. You're self-defeating your own agenda that way. No, Carbine cannot win. Blizzard hasn't won in ten years with a peak of 12 million subs and still 7 million playing. Nobody comes onto these forums because they wanted to tell Carbine what a great job they're doing; all the new faces are people who came here because they didn't like something, as you did today. And your problems are different than all the other ones that came before you. You can see trends come and go over the long term as far as what people are here to complain about. Just in the last week, the people complaining about timers were replaced by people who complained about nerfing the difficulty. And, no doubt, if and when these issues are resolved or forgotten, something else will come up. If you don't respect me because I haven't looked down my nose at Carbine's staff with my head quite far back enough for your liking, I don't think you can feasibly expect me to extend you more courtesy than that. | |} ---- ---- No you aren't. Do you know if they are understaffed? Do you know if they have a lot of people out this summer for vacation, sickness, pa/maternity leave? How much of their schedule is taken up by documentation, paperwork, support related activities vs new content vs bug fixing? You have no bloody idea. None of us do. So start talking about your experience, the thing you do actually know about, rather than presuming a load of guff about people you don't know or work with? | |} ---- Healing wasn't "broken" before the patch. I could be stunned and burnt down by a competent group and we would lose. Heaven forbid it takes some teamwork to win! Nope we'll just scratch healers from PvP altogether. It took skill to win a match before the patch. Teamwork, communication and targeting enemy healers. We may as well be playing an FPS, no heals no tanks just people trying to kill each other. | |} ---- It was high, but it had to be high because damage was high. But now damage is high, damage cooldowns are low and healing cooldowns have less much throughput than the damage counterparts and higher cooldowns? Obviously there is great disparity in the class system so its not as clear cut as that one sentence, but it is my general impression from the last two weeks of trying to heal. HPs go down and they don't come back up quickly, easily or before the next smashing attack comes. There are a lot of spreadsheet numbers to play around with to fix that conundrum, but leaving the game as it is at the moment while they balance the books is a terrible situation for the healers. | |} ---- Be carefull at what you are saying. The devs are listening. ;) | |} ---- no, WE do not need a roadmap of anything. truth is people complain the ignore gaming history by doing this or that, then people ask that they IGNORE gaming history by more communication. truth is WE as a community have prove time and time again that we misunderstand or blatantly ignore dev communications. if we get a roadmap and time frames, if something comes up so there is a delay, there are always those that crow about being lied to, abotu deadlines not being met, endless baseless speculation about their motives and intent. if we get a notice that a certain fix is being delayed due to it being more work or causing more issues, some complain that its not getting fixed fast enough, that their workflow sucks that they need to put more people on it. there are people that what the devs do (in any game) will NEVER be good enough. I would say that they have learned a lot from game forums in the last decade and more. basically, nothing they do will ever be enough.I dont think we are being treated like children. I think we are being treated like the game community that developers have come to expect. | |} ---- What you are saying is that because they will never make "everyone" happy they shouldn't bother trying at all. Well, I don't agree. I think there are plenty of people out there who can read a roadmap of changes and understand they might take time and be satisfied with that. Especially when you are talking about complex issues. Raising the stats on the 12/1500 gear is not a complex issue. Its a SQL script that you write, test and deploy. Its numbers. Its easy. If it isn't; you're doing it wrong. | |} ---- Welcome to the problem. Now back up to the complaints here in GD in June about PVP. Threads were full of this. Speaking of.... Okay, well, I'm an architectural designer that works in health care. I routinely work on massive projects with multiple independent contractors, clients, project managers, building officials, et al. Projects with "small" multimillion dollar budgets that will go on for 6-7 years. I've got a healthy dose of respect for their work. To answer your questions: 1. Carbine still has job listings, so I would assume they are understaffed in some areas. There are plenty of references to working overtime to fix bugs for the staff they have. I've received no indication Carbine's staff has decided to take vacation en masse. There is no logical reason to, as there's so much work and their jobs ride on their ability to fix things. I read the patch notes; I can't fathom how they're fixing them as fast as they are. If you've more familiarity with MMORPG launches, coupled with the knowledge we have about their staff (they've risen to about 250 people all told last I heard), you'd be impressed, too. There will always be bugs, but I can't imagine a company that size fixing that much any faster than they are. Bug fixing especially isn't a factory job, relatively small issues can have relatively deep causes in very sensitive parts of the architecture. Try finding out you need a set of 20 6" pipe chases going up through a building and you'll know that even something that small has HUGE, wide-ranging consequences for design. It's even worse having to do it in a piece of live software constantly getting hammered by thousands of idiosyncratic player styles. It ain't Mario anymore. 2. Bug fixing is atop the agenda, as most of what they have for development is already developed most of the way. There's a team that adapts the pre-made content for the new launch version and puts it in the game, but the majority of the designers are working on fixing systems at the moment (as was the plan at launch). Paperwork and documentation gets handled by whoever needs it (not all 250 people in the company are programmers; I'm assuming they've got some HR in there) and internal communication is key. If anything, they don't have enough, since if you don't like version crossover bugs, that's entirely handled through coordination and paperwork. I think I've got a pretty good idea of how it is over there and what's going on. If none of us knows, it hardly seems like laziness is something we can accuse them of. I feel confident in saying, though, that whether you approve of them or not, they aren't just sitting on their hands. I've been here a while, I try to keep up with dev tracker, their Nexus Report feed, reddit, twitter, et al. I've seen no indication that the Carbine staff just aren't working hard enough, unless you'd like them on mandatory 80 hour weeks. | |} ---- You have severely underestimated how complex these games are. It's not a BBS patch. | |} ---- I am not saying that at all. I am just pointing out, as others have, that the devs are communicating, they are just not doing it how you like. since they are hiring and you know how to do it, why not apply for a job there? if it is really that simple of an issue, and they are not aware of it, I am seriously certain they would want you on the job assisting them. that way you would even get paid for it. and could communicate as you think a dev should to us. | |} ---- ---- Honestly, that's why I didn't go into game design. That architecture degree in '08 was worthless with the crash, and I had 3ds Max experience. Why not go into video game design? Then I saw the kind of hours, salary, and relocation they have to go through, coupled with their own job security. I learned Revit and waited for the market to bounce back. | |} ---- then do what people did back in the day. they actually contacted the studio with the fix. in several cases the fixes that players had sent in were implemented. (of course they broke again later but such is life of code) | |} ---- ---- He's not saying they shouldn't try, he's saying it's a Catch 22. So they are doing what they can, and do it knowing they can't please everyone and they're not going to try and please everyone, they are just going to do what they say they will do: communicate with us when/what they can. Just because it's not what you want to hear, it doesn't mean they aren't. Yes, there are some that will read the roadmap and know that shit happens and can't always go as planned, but then there's those that don't know that(or ignore that) and will cry, flame and whinge. Again, Catch 22. This isn't a flame question, it's honest curiosity: Have you ever worked on developing an MMO? Is it really as easy as you say it is? | |} ---- ---- I don't think I ever said its easy. I just criticize the way its being done at the moment. I've managed several projects that involved extremely similar elements. Design iteration, testing, QA, bug reporting feature requests and above all; communication with your project stakeholders. Ask any project manager and they will tell you that the last one is one of the most critical, because the perception of how well your project is progressing and being run is as important as achieving your milestones, if not more so in a corporate environment. | |} ---- Actually its just all I play at the moment, since I have no interest in 40man content and there is no reason to run dungeons if you're not going to raid. (Read the OP) | |} ---- gamers are NOT stakeholders unless you hold shares in the company. do we help pay the bills? certainly. but we are by no means stakeholders in the company. we play the game, we do not hold stocks, we do not control voting shares, we are not paid dividends. we pay to use the product, and the fact that they even listen to us, is a great thing, but should by no means be taken to mean that we have much of a say in the greater scheme of things | |} ---- I work with 3ds max on a daily basis not game design but doing product design/archviz/vfx for advertising (car commercials etc) etc. and here its the same deal pay is not really that great for the hours you have to pull. I think thats the curse of working in front of a pc. Cause everbody thinks stuff just happens with a push of a button. | |} ---- Well, they have, but it's not the response people were looking for. They said multiple times that PVP is a lot harder to handle. Thing is that PVP bots can look a lot more "natural" from a code perspective than a mining bot (which really have to fly around or they'll get eaten by something too often). The rating tanking is even harder because, quite frankly, at first they weren't sure it was "against the rules". Once they decided to do something, it's hard to do that with a bludgeon. What they seem to have settled on in the broad strokes is making gear closer together (so that 1200-rated PVPers aren't that far off 1800s anyway) and to scale stats with rating (so tanked rating = lower gearscore, you can't take your ATP with you). I'm not sure this fixes the core issues, but might help. I was against the healer rebalance at the time (I thought that it was easy enough to break coordinated healing with coordinated cc and dps, but I was one of the few voices), and I think healing was definitely nerfed too far. So heals probably need a rebuff again to a happier medium. I think Carbine's doing what they can, but these things are a bit more nebulous than you'd think. Like the PVP heals issue, do they know it's really a problem because of the numbers they got? How much of a problem? Is it as bad as everyone says it is? Unfortunately, PVP is harder to "fix". I don't think there's a game anywhere that it is "fixed", because if you're losing and you don't think it's your fault, you come on the forums to complain. Raid bosses can't log in to ask for a PC nerf because they're getting facerolled by too many people. Things like rating tanking are more objective issues they can fix; I don't think people should get 1800 gear and intentionally drop to 1200 so they can bully other 1200s for money. But any game with PVP is going to eat criticism on that front. The best thing to do is be pointed in your criticism. Hell, numbers and theorycrafting are why the changes were enacted in the first place. I have my own list of pet peeves I want addressed (though mine are centered more around my mining laser sometimes disappearing randomly and me appearing to shoot a high-frequency laser out of my manhood), but I can objectively say that people running through high end PVE and PVP trump my concerns. Theirs are deeper, more systematic, and will take more time. Getting a noise when I draw my weapons while moving just isn't high up on the list of issues, nor should it be. | |} ---- I know. I could write a diatribe on Revit. Delete something innocuous and save, you could cost someone hours of fixing something. Change a setting? You could ruin the work of three people for a day. Need to just move a piece of casework out a bit? It could take five minutes, it could take five hours. | |} ---- Actually a stakeholder in project management terms is anyone with a vested interest in your project for any reason, not a financial interest. A person who will use the software you are iterating on is the definition of a stakeholder, as they are the people who will be testing, giving you feedback and ultimately using your software. | |} ---- Actually, yes you did say it was easy(which is why I asked): I wasn't asking if communication was easy, I was asking about the development and implementation of that fix for PvP gear you used as an example. | |} ---- "Fixing PVP" isn't the thrust of it though. Lets take matchmaking. This is a system with a purpose. The purpose is to score, balance and reward your playerbase for playing the content. Its designed to be a yard stick for your skill in order to assist the game in providing you with the best experience, ie; matches against similarly skilled players against whom you have a good chance of winning. Agreed? So why is there a gear difference? Why is there gear you can take from one rated system (arena) and queue against others using it at a lower skill rating? Why is the gear you are using not a factor in your matchmaking system? Its an anomaly, a total rogue element. Now you match me against a guy in 1200, and I smash him easily even though we are both 1400 RBG rating. There are two issues here; the fact that the gear gives such an advantage is one, but the second is a total unknown with no response from the devs thus far. Why can I do that, legitimately? Its no fun for the 1200 guy. He has no chance really, and will lose rating for the pleasure. That is a fundamental system flaw. Its not a question of balance, or mechanics or anything that can complicate MMO gaming. That is pure numbers, clear as day. | |} ---- Unless they have done something really, really wrong. Yes, that change is that easy. Select * from Done. Show me the schema and I'll have it written for you in an hour, promise. (and I know jack about SQL, my father happens to be a retired DBA so I picked a lot up) | |} ---- ---- I do agree that it would be nice if we could all be trusted with all the information. Unfortunately, most people can't, and we don't have a way to introduce "chat attunement" to clear out the people who need to work on handling information and giving cogent feedback from the more mature people. We had a two day flamewar erupt over their last announcement. Not implementation, announcement. These forums can be markedly unpleasant. However, I think the devs have done a good job of at least trying to keep people apprised of the state of the game, what their general feelings are, what they have heard the issues are, et al. I think the problem might be the places that information ends up. You've got Nexus Report, twitter, reddit, these forums, interviews, and if you hunt down your information you get a lot of what you want. And they have tools, like dev tracker for these forums and the Nexus Report if you want a rundown on the info in video form. But social media, while powerful, fragments the ways you can disseminate information. It might be nice if there was more redundancy (i.e. there's a thread on the forums that is devoted to twitter, the twitter feed gets notice of new important dev forum postings, etc.). However, I'm not sure how helpful it will be. People don't often like to look for their information. Third and most importantly, I wouldn't mind if the development department heads had a weekly get-on-the-forums-and-give-an-honest-update-of-what-they-did. I'd appreciate the information, regardless of how flammable it might be. But I'm glad they aren't spending that much time on social media. I expect that they're working, hard, on fixing things and coordinating so they don't break more. Once weekly summaries from the department heads, just a paragraph or two talking about the work they did, issues they had, dreams of seeing the sunlight with their children, would be more than sufficient. | |} ---- I don't want to be snarky like some have been, but really? :huh: :rolleyes: So if it really is that easy, why isn't it done yet? I mean, you're saying you can have one schema done in an hour. So, how many are actually in the game? Multiply that by the changes that it could cause in other areas(I say that because there's been a couple of times I've seen "Well, we fixed ______, but for some reason it broke _______"), and it seems to me it isn't quite as easy as all that. | |} ---- I super serious when I say it really is that easy. I would hope there is only one schema for player inventories, it would seem to be super complicated to store that information in another place in a different schema unless you can think of a purpose for that..? | |} ---- I think the idea was that they'd have more of a problem with PVP bots (and they did and might still do). The "second problem" you may be having is the natural PVP skill divide. PVP is a system with its own, self-regulating difficulty curve. Half the people-ish will always be winning, half will be losing, and nascent skill has a lot to do with it. The biggest problem is that these are one problem. Gear =/= skill, but gear is attained from your rating, which should be a measure of skill. It can also be attained by crafting, so you can buy into PVP without having the requisite skills. So what you have is a system with three scales, gear, rating, and skill, and all of them are being constantly affected. If, for example, you want gear to alter rating for queues but not otherwise, just do the WoW thing (queue up in crap gear, equip the good gear). You'd have to hard-lock the gear. Honestly, I don't think Carbine foresaw people tanking ratings for money since they assumed everyone would want to have a high rating for ELO and lulz. So much for trusting the playerbase. In the end, their scalable gear (PVP gear scaling to rating) may help, but a 1200 rated group in reduced gear can still run circles around a 1400 rated group in the best gear. Why tank your rating and fight back up, rather than expanding and putting together a warplot or becoming a force to be reckoned with? I have no idea. Maybe it's because it's easier to do alone and PVPers haven't been socializing and clumping up as much as PVEers (and that's saying something). The bigger question might be, "how do we get these disparate people wasting their skills on the system to want to be better, while still not making them so godlike with their rewards that they can exploit the system?" As a person who PVPs the odd BG on a whim, I don't have the answer to that question. But I think that's where the answers are, in aiming people towards Warplots the way PVE players are aimed at raiding. PVE players, even solo players, want desperately to raid, with or without the requisite skills or investment, but at least they want to see the endgame. It's a mystery to me (one you, as a PVP-only player) might solve as to why Warplots don't have that same magnetism. You'd think 40-40 fights in custom bases for a BG would be more of the thing to do. | |} ---- That's not strictly true, though. Armor and weapons aren't in a simple database list; a lot have custom stats, slots, and effects. So I know, just from that, there are a LOT of variables that have to be accounted for. It's not like in WoW (where your explanation holds water) where all of item X are the same. In Wildstar, Item X can have thousands of permutations as the stats increase. I've no idea how they made that work in practice (there are a lot of possible ways to do it), but a simple line item wouldn't be enough. | |} ---- I think we can agree that something like that on a weekly basis would drastically improve the situation over what we have now. The problem, as you say, is if they spend huge amounts of time on un-announced features, projects etc. To be honest, I can't imagine people spending time on stuff like that when the basic systems we have now are in so much trouble. If that is the case, then we're wasting our breath anyway because it'll never get fixed. | |} ---- not all PVE players have a burning desire to raid. I personally just enjoy playing, and have no desperate need to raid, or join a raid. not meaning to go off topic, but felt that should be pointed out | |} ---- ---- I'm pretty sure each item still has to have a unique ID, even if its slots and stats are randomized in some way. In which case all you are doing is altering the stats and leaving the rest of its fields alone as they are. If its much more complicated than that, they have shot themselves in the foot by doing things poorly imo. Which is fine, mistakes can be made. But post, and tell us about the delay and why. | |} ---- It's that simple. Customers want to know that they're being heard. The downside of course is Chilla and Buster might get bored without all the duplicate posts to lock up every day. | |} ---- If I had to take a shot in the dark, I'd say that "stat rebalancing" and "changes to gearing" are running directly into an idea where Item X has a listing of every single stat, slot, etc. In WoW, it's easy, remove some points of AGI from the list item. How do you do that in a game where you rebalance stats (particularly into AP for some classes, SP for others, and those all being different stats for different classes). I can easily see the implementation for that being a pain in the ass. So they'll want to take the time to get that right the first time, since they can't go back and forth over it easily like other games. I like the idea of very customizeable armor, but it does make it harder to rebalance for stats. All the unique ID probably does is has a name and a modifier for everything else. I think the basic systems are pretty good. Combat's excellent, and I love the content. Gearing's a pain that I think needs to be changed, but I'm somewhat aware of the difficulty in changing it after the fact. They spend most of their time fixing bugs, like disappearing gear and re-allocating stats, etc. Luckily, I really, really like playing this game. I'm not one to say the game's perfect or can't get better, but I'm a big fan of just running the content. It's fairly obvious that what they're missing isn't gameplay, but systems and incentives to make people want to play for long stretches every day. I've written a couple posts about that so far. They run into whether it's better to force a long grind but give people something to play for, or whether they want to make things more accessible for people with less time, but have those artificial barriers give people reasons to finish for the day and not log in. | |} ---- They try and keep things in one place..ppl keep making threads about the same issue and then when they are told its here already and its locked they complain. People just need to read the stuff thats out already. | |} ---- ---- The gear gap fix has been on the PTR for almost a week... Sometimes maybe you should fact check your own statements... o.O | |} ---- ---- Yeah, but we know you're just looking forward to people logging in so you can have snacks. :) | |} ---- Well, if true then great. Thats still 2 weeks away, so not good enough for me but hey. Plus I didn't see a post, or even anything in the PTR notes about it. Thats one point out of about 20 others made if true.. not really digging much out of that communications black hole. | |} ---- pretty much a given at this point that what they are doing is not good enough for you. that is clear. fix on PTR, not good enough. hilarious. okay well, good to know you are trying to save the game. | |} ---- ---- You know they do have meetings every week where the hottest issues are brought forth from the various departments, including forum moderation. They actually have people pass the most dire and crucial issues. Maybe what you consider crucial and dire doesn't fit with their definition. But they are already doing what you suggest in the first paragraph. | |} ---- where itemid=XXXX